Time to Share Our Love
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: When Christine and Erik first met, a timer appeared on their wrist counting down to the moment they would lose each other. Now they lie in bed beside each other, and there is only a week left
1. Christine

**A/N: rjdaae sent me the prompt that inspired this.**

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Three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours. Ten minutes. Fifteen seconds. She's learned it, memorised it. How could she not? It is there, every smaller, ticking away. Getting smaller, shorter and a time will come—a time will come when—

Sometimes she hopes it will be her. That she will never have to live in a world without him, will never have to see the numbers vanished from her wrist. And then she hates herself for it, for even considering putting that pain on him.

He has suffered enough.

Mostly she tries not to think of it, pushes the thoughts away when her wrist tingles, or when his cuff rides up enough to show the black numbers that have so definitively marked their time together.

But at night. At night it is not so easy to forget, not when he is lying beside her, breathing softly, his arm wrapped around her. And she thinks she can feel the numbers ticking down, pressed against her side.

It makes her feel light-headed.

She wonders how it will happen. An accident? A carriage careening into the sidewalk? A misfired gun? A stabbing in a robbery gone wrong? Fantastical possibilities, each of them, the stuff of operas, of penny-dreadfuls, not of reality. More than likely it will be something simple, something unpreventable.

He has read every medical book he can lay his hands on as if it might protect them, keep them safe, subvert the hands of Fate when it has not been enough to save any other couple just as condemned as they are.

She sighs and draws a breath to steady the pounding of her heart, and nuzzles closer into her sleeping husband, her mind wandering back through each of those years, months, weeks, and she knows she will never forget that very first moment, when the timer stood whole.

Her wrist tingled when the counter started, and that was how she knew. She was in her dressing room, and the Voice was singing softly from behind the wall, and there was a burning in her wrist, followed by a tingle, and she looked down to see the line of numbers unfurling across, as if they had been waiting just beneath the surface of her skin all of her life. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Ten. Fifteen. The Voice stopped in a gasp, such a soft sound that she could only stare into her mirror, her breath caught in her throat.

Angels do not gasp. Angels are never the only ones present when a person gets their timer. And in that moment she knew, she knew it all.

It did not seem so very terrible.

It was not that they decided to cram a lifetime into three years. They did not discuss it. It did not seem like something that needed discussion when they both knew, when she could see the downward curve of his lip at the sight of her wrist. It simply happened from the moment that the mirror slid open, and that was not the strangest thing that happened that day.

He stepped through, tall and elegant and masked, and without asking a question, before he could even speak a word, she slipped the mask off as his eyes widened, and she took in the face beneath, and knew that if it came to that, she would learn to love it.

She looks at it now in the darkness of the night, sleeping on the pillow beside her, the lines of worry smoothed away, and knows that she would not have it any other way.

He kissed her hand that night, every inch the proper gentleman, and two months later they were married in a private ceremony.

(She proposed to him. He was still struggling with his feelings, with what had happened between them. Still fighting, he confessed later, to believe that such a thing was possible.)

The years have faded away. The years, and the months, and two of the weeks. She performed for the last time when there was only one month on her wrist, no years or weeks or days. And if it is him, she is not certain she will ever have the strength to perform again.

(He tells her she will. That she is stronger than she thinks, that she will grace that stage again, and she knows that he thinks it will be him, and he is getting ready for it. Sometimes, sometimes when the night is dark and cold and he is restless too she thinks he will make sure it is him. He has often said that he has lived long enough.)

She has not told him her secret. If it becomes clear that it will be him, then she will confess it, just so he knows that something beautiful came of their time together, and not just pain. But if there is any chance that it will be her, any chance at all, she will not breathe a word. She will not be the one to snatch two lives from him.

(He always said it would be careless, for them to even take the risk of such a thing happening. But when she kissed him, and held him, any protest died on his lips.)

But tonight, tonight there is only them, just the two of them, tucked together. He has been so tired lately, fighting to stay awake, fighting for every moment. And she thinks, perhaps, she is not the only one keeping secrets.

There is no room left inside of her to be sad, to grieve. There is only numbness. Other people have spoken of it, of the way it feels towards the end, and she knows it inside out, in every way she can. The desperation, and the dread, and the yawning emptiness.

She should not think of such things tonight. Should think only of him, of how much she loves him, of the wonderful life they have had. Should try to get some sleep, while he is sleeping, but how can she sleep when that would waste so many moments? So much time?

Her eyes prickle, only for a moment, and the tears do not come but she tightens her fingers around his, raises his hand to her lips and kisses his knuckles gently.

"I love you," she murmurs, and wishes the words were enough to shield them.

But not even prayers can do that.


	2. Erik

**A/N: Due to popular demand, I decided to add a second chapter. Enjoy the pain! Trigger warning for some consideration of suicide.**

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He will not tell her. He _cannot_ tell her, not until the very end when she cannot stop him and when there is no other way. He will not burden her with foreknowledge of his actions, not when that foreknowledge will not make it any easier for her to bear, will only make her worry more and plead with him not to do it.

He must do it.

It is the only way.

So help him but he will not let it be her that goes. She deserves a life, and he has already lived one, and if it is the last thing that he can give her – the chance of a life without him – then he will, and so be it. He will so it gladly, will close his eyes for the last time without a breath of protest, if it only means that she can live.

He has lived so very long, you see. And for so much of that time he never thought that there would be the chance of someone, that he might share that one singular thing with everyone else when he has never shared anything. What drew him to her that night he will never know, will never understand. It was more than her voice. Of that he is certain. It was so much more than her voice.

And he has thought, in the long nights that he has lain awake beside her, watching her pale face in sleep, the slight part of her lips for each faint breath, he has thought that it was some preternatural sixth sense that pulled on him, demanded that he make himself known to her somehow despite all of his better instincts. He has curled his fingers around hers, and turned her wrist over to watch their timers ticking alongside each other, and felt that sweet aching stir in his heart at the sight of them, the same and different all at once, matching numbers and separate wrists. He has traced his finger lightly over her timer, so as not to disturb her, and felt more blessed than surely any man has ever felt, with this creature sleeping beside him, without caring about what he is, what he was.

There is no power in heaven or hell that will let him let it be her.

Six days. They have six days left, and she smiles at him with that bittersweet ache in her eyes, and he knows she is conscious of it every single moment, just like he is. How can they not be, with it imprinted on their wrists? Branded on their very flesh? Their souls have cried out for each other all of their lives and now—

Now one of their lives must end. He has lived thirty years longer. It is only natural that it be him.

He has the poison prepared. It was not very difficult, a recipe he recorded in his Persian years. Poison never suited his aesthetic. He has never been able to find it pleasing, but it is subtle, for the most part, can work away in secret and leave little trace. And though he has never found it pleasing, he cannot deny that it is useful. He will not leave a mess for her to look after, and this is so much cleaner.

He has his will ready, and instructions left with Mohammed to see that she is looked after. When the time comes, the last day, and she is well, he will drink it. He has the hours measured out, knows exactly how long it will take to start to work, and it is only then, when it is too late for her to do anything about it, that he will confess to her.

It will stop his heart, simple and quick and with little pain, and he will have a little time to apologise to her, to explain, before it snatches his consciousness. He will fall asleep, and slip away, and it will be easy, knowing that she will be safe.

(If he were a stronger man, he would kill himself away from her, to not put the burden of being there on her. He would drown himself in the Seine, and no one would ask questions when they dredge his body out, would simply think his face was damaged by the water and in death he could be any man. But he is not strong enough for such an end, not strong enough to spare her his last hours, and it will be easier to go, resting in her arms.)

Mohammed will be with her. Erik has insisted upon that point, and Mohammed quietly agreed. It would be cruel of him to leave her to face his death alone, and Mohammed knows that. He had to confide his secret in someone and Mohammed—Mohammed can understand.

Mohammed would have done the same, once upon a time, if he—if _they_ had not been too late.

(Tears glistened in his eyes as Erik finished revealing his plan to him, and he did not say a word, simply nodded, a tear trickling down his cheek, and pulled Erik into a hug, and Erik could not bring himself to pull away.)

Christine is sleeping, tonight, and it is a relief. Erik knows her sleep has been disturbed. His own has been the same, though he has concealed that from her too. How can he sleep peacefully when in six days he will meet his death? When in six days he will leave her a widow? If he could he would hold her for every single one of those moments they have, right until the last second.

She whimpers slightly, a frown creasing her sweet face, and he tightens his arm around her waist, brushes his lips against his forehead. "There's no need to worry, my love." His voice is soft in the stillness of the night, his words gentle, and he sighs as the creases smooth from her face. "Everything is taken care of, I promise. I promise."

In spite of his best efforts, tears prickle his eyes. Everything is taken care of, and it will be him. But for all that he wants her to live, wants her to have a life, he does not want to die.


	3. The End

**Thirty minutes, ten seconds**

Erik draws in another deep breath, his lips barely parted, and Christine tightens her arms around him, brushes her lips gently against his forehead, his body heavy and limp in her arms. When he bathed this morning he used her tea rose, and as she inhales the scent of his hair now she knows she'll never be able to use it again.

 **Twenty-nine minutes, eleven seconds**

The priest is sitting outside. He left the room a few minutes ago (twelve minutes, twenty-seven seconds), for to give her privacy with Erik at the last. It was Erik's request, as he lay in her arms, for Mohammed to send for a priest. _To better my chances of seeing you again_ , he murmured, his eyes half-closed, half-focused, and she squeezed his hand and whispered, her voice thick with tears, _Of course you'll see me again._

He had slipped into unconsciousness when the priest came, though she tried to keep him awake. She shook him and pleaded with him and begged him to wake up, and he lay there, oblivious to her, pale and silent.

The priest was kind though surely she looked a mess, her hair wild and eyes red, and he squeezed her hand and gave her a small, sad smile. He tuned his attentions back to Erik, and as he whispered Latin, made the sign of the cross on Erik's forehead with chrism, the cuff of his own sleeve rode up, and Christine's eyes took in the numbers in a moment, barely believing them.

Four years, ten months, and three weeks. It flashes before Christine again, sharp in her chest and she swallows. He has over four years left, almost five, more than she ever had with Erik. What she would not give to have almost five years left.

 **Twenty-seven minutes**

Erik's eyes met hers as he swayed on the spot, and his knees buckled. He threw out a hand to catch himself on the table, Mohammed rushing in to steady him, but it was Christine who caught him, and Christine who was pulled to the ground with him, and Christine who held him tight as he gasped for breath, his whole body tremble in her arms.

She shakes her head to try to forget, swallows as if it will ease the tightness in her chest, but nothing will ever be able to drive the memory of it away. He whimpers, as if he can hear her thoughts, but he has no strength left to tremble now.

 **Twenty-four minutes, fifty-six seconds**

Erik smiled faintly at her as she and Mohammed settled him in the bed. They might have laid him out on the divan, it would have been closer, but the bed was more comfortable – is more comfortable – and it is easier to lie beside Erik here, and hold him in her arms. He would prefer to die in bed.

 **Twenty-four minutes**

He nuzzled into her chest, murmured how he wanted to hear her heart, and he was still lying pressed to her like that when his eyes closed and he slipped into unconsciousness. She has not shifted from the position, not even for to make things easier for the priest. If she is to hold her husband for the last time, she would rather that it be as he dictated it. She could not bear to lie beside him and hear his heart stutter to a stop.

 **Twenty-two minutes, forty seconds**

The priest does not know Erik's secret, and she will not be the one to tell him. She will not let him condemn Erik to the fire.

 **Twenty-one minutes, fifty-nine seconds**

Erik looked at her with starry eyes, and she was not certain he could see her but she smiled for him and fought to keep the tears from her voice anyway. _I forgive you,_ she whispered, _I forgive you_ , and deep down knew that her words were a lie. She knows why he did this, but she cannot forgive him for it.

 **Twenty-one minutes**

His voice was so faint she could barely hear him as he breathed his confession to her, his eyes sliding past her, unfocused.

 **Twenty minutes**

Is it really three years, three months, three weeks, and three days since she eased the mask from his face for the first time? It might only be five minutes since he stood before her after stepping through her mirror, shocked and hesitant. A whole lifetime, held in the space of five minutes.

 **Nineteen minutes, forty-seven seconds**

They say the number three is lucky, but she cannot share their opinion. The only luck she's known is that she found Erik before their time grew even shorter.

 **Nineteen minutes**

They never got the chance to be three.

 **Eighteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds**

The pauses between his breaths are growing longer. She might count them, but there is enough counting out of their time already.

He draws in a breath, eyelids fluttering, his lips tinged faintly blue.

He was crying, at their wedding. It was a very small wedding. Her and Erik, of course, and the priest (a different priest, an older one, not this one who waits outside to claim Erik's soul), and Mamma (Lord have mercy on her) and Mohammed and his servant Darius, and Sorelli. Such a small wedding, but it was best that way. She could not let Erik marry her wearing his mask, and everyone in that room had seen his face.

She might have asked Sorelli to be with her now, but she only has three weeks to go until the baby is born and Christine will not be the one to remind her that her own timer is running down too.

Erik sighs out the breath.

 **Eighteen minutes, ten seconds**

She's known it would come to this, known it from the very first moment that she looked down at the new numbers on her wrist. And though there was the small flicker in the back of her mind that it could be her, she never truly expected it would be. It was always bound to be him, and she just let herself forget, for a time, let her guard down, and the pain twists deep in her chest but she cannot let it out now, not yet. Not when he is still breathing.

Still breathing, but for how long? How much longer?

(She knows exactly how much longer, it's printed on both of their wrists, ticking down beside each other. Seventeen minutes, twenty-two seconds. Twenty-one seconds. Twenty seconds. She closes her eyes so as not to have to see them, changing every second, their time growing ever-shorter.)

 **Seventeen minutes**

"I love you," she whispers, the words seeming so much more important now, so much more critical. She's whispered them to him every day for the last three years (one month, two weeks), and normally he smiles back at her, his eyes soft and shining, and murmurs them back, squeezing her hand or kissing her cheek or holding her a little tighter. _I love you_. There are only so many more times she can fit them in now, in what they have left, but how can she tell him when he can't answer her back? When she is not even certain that he can hear her?

Her eyes flicker open again. She needs to watch the timer change. She needs to.

(Sometimes she thinks the timer runs slower when she is looking at it.)

 **Fifteen minutes, fifty-nine seconds**

Only quarter of an hour, the brief ticking of a clock and their life is over. Quarter of an hour, and his heart will stutter to a halt and she will he left here alone. Most people barely even notice the shifting of quarter of an hour, but bile rises hot and acidic in her throat and it's all she can do to swallow it down, to keep the nausea at bay.

There has been so very much nausea lately.

 **Fourteen minutes, thirty-one seconds**

He was lying in her arms, barely awake, when she whispered it to him, admitted to the secret she's been keeping through these long weeks. The baby living inside of her, the tiny, poor little baby whose father is dying now. And Erik's eyes watered at her words, fresh tears trickling down his cheeks, and he raised his hand, and laid it flat across her stomach, and said not a word but he did not need to, not then. The pain in his eyes said enough, and Christine's own eyes prickle again now.

 **Thirteen minutes**

If he had waited, would they have circumvented Fate? Or in the very effort to protect her did he bring this about? Would one of them have succumbed anyway?

He confessed his sin to her while Mohammed was gone for the priest, confessed in a low voice rough with so much desperation _. I need you to know_.

Poison, brewed himself, and the question turns over and over in her mind. Is it better that she know? Better that she understand his suicide? Heaven knows if it were not for the child within her she might have made the same decision. They both might be lying dying now. But if he had not told her, if he had carried that secret into his grave—Is it easier like this?

She swallows hard against the lump in her throat, squeezes his fingers, and they are so cold now, so cold, and she knows that nothing about this could ever be easy.

 **Eleven minutes**

He moans, and presses himself closer to her. He promised that he would not feel a thing, that the shutting down of his body would be painless and he would know no suffering, but he moans again and she wonders just how painless it is. Does he, even unconscious, know that she is here holding him? She smooths his hair, and tightens her arms around him, and hopes.

 **Nine minutes, forty-seven seconds**

She should sing for him, should let her voice bear him away. But if she opens her mouth she might start screaming and not be able to stop and she will not have her screaming be the last thing he hears in this world.

 **Nine minutes**

Nine months. What she would not give for nine more months, to have him and love him and see him hold their baby. He would be so awkward about it, so worried and uncertain and it would be beautiful and her heart aches at the very thought but such things are impossible, truly impossible and tears burn hot over the lips of her eyelids but she does not try to stop them. What would be the point? Her husband is dying, and will never know their daughter and how she is certain it will be a daughter she does not know but Erik will never know their little girl and their little girl will never know Erik and it's so unfair! Unfair and unnatural and wrong! Fathers are not supposed to die, are supposed to continue on always, gentle and awkward and loving in their own way and what she would not give to be able to throw herself back into her father's arms but he's gone, and Erik's almost gone and she's bleeding to death inside with the pain of it, the terrible, stabbing pain and she can't breathe with it. She can't breathe and she feels it distantly as if it's somebody else but it's her, it's her, and she gasps, and Erik doesn't stir, will stir no more, and she kisses his forehead, again and again and again, as if he can feel her, as if he can take that with him into the darkness and have some small part of her with him forever.

 **Four minutes**

She will be dignified when he dies. She will not disgrace herself, will not disgrace _him_ , and she bites her cheek in the effort to will herself to breathe, to focus, to not think of the ludicrousness of this but to simply remember her husband as he was. As he was, tentatively taking her hand, and smiling at her. As he was, holding her close to him on their wedding night as if she would slip from his arms forever. As he was playing his music, content in his own world. As he was, startlingly attractive in his black dress suit, regal and proud and elegant and her heart fluttered at the very sight of him. As he was, his laugh high and half-surprised and the most beautiful sound in the world. As he was, wonderful and beautiful and gentle in spite of every one of his stubborn flaws, and there is so much that she wishes she could tell him, that she should have told him more when she had the chance, but the words all catch in her throat and it's all she can do to breathe.

 **Two minutes**

She pulls herself back from him, and traces her fingers lightly over his face. Over the curves of his eyebrows, and the angles of his cheekbones, and the creases of his lips, and lightly over his eyelids, his skin so delicate and though his lack of a nose never frightened her – how could it, when her wrist declared him her soulmate? – it has always been slightly strange, but strange in a way that she has come to love, and if their daughter takes after her father, Christine will not object.

 **One minute**

She nods, and presses her lips gently to his, and pulls him closer, so that his ear is still pressed to her chest. Let her heart be the last thing he hears, her heart that he has sacrificed himself to keep beating. And she swallows, and draws a stuttering breath, her tears hot on her cheeks, and braces herself for the end.

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 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who's reviewed and favourited and followed. I never expected this to be half as popular as it's become! And this is definitely the last chapter this time.**


	4. Epilogue

**A/N:** **I considered adding an epilogue to this several times, and then a prompt fromrjdaae convinced me to. This was originally posted to Tumblr as a ficlet, but I cleaned it up and added a paragraph or two. So go forth and enjoy the angst!**

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Four years. Four years, _tonight._ He has been dead longer than she was ever with him, and that thought cuts her to the core. They had over three years together, but they never made it to four. They never _could_ have made it to four. It was fated against them from the very start, from the moment that line of numbers unfurled on her wrist.

Three years, three months, three days. And the hours, and the minutes. And the seconds. Each one of those seconds. And what she would not give, now, just to have those seconds back, to hold him in her arms again and press her lips to his, and promise him the world. Promise him that she would never let him go. Her heart aches just to hold him, just to have him, once more.

They told her it would get easier in time. The priest, the doctor. Mohammed, even, with that aching sadness in his eyes. And yes, it might be easier to breathe and she no longer feels like she'll shatter apart at the thought that he is gone, but it is not _easier_. She does not miss him any less, long for him any less. Sometimes she still feels him heavy in her arms, his breaths soft against her throat, his fingertips brushing her cheek.

Little Sonja does not have her Papa's eyes, and Christine thinks perhaps that is best. The little girl's life is marked by him enough, by the _absence_ of him, without having her resemble him.

Erik did not know that she lived beneath Christine's heart, but Christine thinks he would be pleased that she has a normal face.

And though a normal face can protect her from the stares of the world, from the stares her father bore and suffered, it cannot protect her from the day those numbers unfurl on her wrist, too.

She does not understand, is still far, far too young to understand what happened to the Papa she never met, but who they visit in the graveyard "with all the pretty flowers" and Sonja sits and traces his name with her tiny fingers though she cannot yet read it. Christine cannot bear to think of the day that she will have to tell her about what happened to him, about how he died to spare her, and to spare Sonja without ever knowing about her.

But Christine's dread for that day is nothing compared to her dread for the day that Sonja's timer comes. Someday Sonja will lock eyes with someone, and one of them will be marked for death from then on. And if Christine could keep her small, could keep her this tiny, precious thing forever, she would. Her little girl does not deserve that pain, should never have to know that pain, and as she burrows her sleeping face deeper into Christine and sighs content in her peaceful dreams, Christine knows that day will come, and it will always be too soon. To live knowing the exact moment when everything will end is no way to live at all.

(And her stomach churns to think that it could be Sonja, her dear, precious little Sonja, that the timer condemns, the very thought too horrible for words. And Christine hopes it is not, prays it is not, but the thought of Sonja having to live through it, having to bear all of that aching agony as she watches the love of her life die, makes her heart twist and it is all too unfair, all too awful.)

Did Christine's father think the same? Looking on her as a little girl? Christine wonders that more and more each day. Perhaps he felt the same. Perhaps he ached to keep her small and safe, but she went and grew up and he died, and never had to see the day that she found Erik.

He would have liked Erik, even with all that meeting him meant.

Sonja whimpers in her sleep, as if she knows that Christine's thoughts are wandering down those old, hollow trails again, and Christine tightens her arms around her daughter, and kisses her hair. And part of her wishes that she could tell Erik about their little girl who is growing up too fast, and part of her thinks that it might be best like this.

If he had known, it would have made everything so much harder. And it was hard enough already.

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 **A/N: I still have several fics ideas (some involving Pharoga) and a similar countdown timer scenario, but if I ever flesh them out and write them, who knows.**

 **As ever, please do let me know what you think! And thank you for the lovely response this fic has gotten. I never expected it to become as popular as it has!**


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